Historically, balls of various descriptions have been provided to play various types of games. In the main, such prior art balls have had a generally spherical shape so that when they are hit, thrown, caught or bounced, the reaction of the ball is predicable regardless of what angle the ball is deployed.
The predicable nature of such prior art balls is somewhat boring to children under the age at which they are capable of playing structured games such as baseball, soccer, and the like. In accordance with the present invention, a ball is provided with randomly oriented elongated ridges and grooves on the surface thereof which results in the ball bouncing in an erratic and unpredicable path when it is thrown against a hard surface. Such erratic, unpredicable behavior is capable of maintaining the interest of a young child for a longer period of time than is the case in connection with the conventional spherical shaped ball.